Promised Land Knows No Peace, Only War

With those words, the Bible describes the results of each of the wars of ancient Israel.

But for modern Israel, which is celebrating its 40th Independence Day on Thursday, the 40 years have been years of war -- a war that began even before Israel was founded.

Journalist Ze`ev Schul is typical of his generation. Now 63 and a grandfather, he has never known a day of peace.

``I joined the Hagana (the main pre-State underground army) when I was 14,`` Schul said. ``That was during the Arab riots of 1939 -- not unlike the riots that are going on in the territories right now, except that the Arabs were a lot stronger then, and we were a lot weaker. And the British, who were in control of the country, tended to side with the Arabs.``

At 18, Schul joined the British Army to fight the Nazis. When World War II was over, he returned to Palestine to fight the British and the Arabs.

Schul`s older brother was a Hagana commander who was caught by the British in February 1948. The British handed him over to an Arab mob, who lynched him, Schul said.

Three months later, on May 14, 1948, the British surrendered control and left the country. On that day, some hours before the British actually left, Israel issued its Declaration of Independence.

Israel`s Independence Day is marked according to the Jewish calendar, and is being observed this year on April 21.

No sooner had Israel declared itself an independent state than it was attacked by the armies of Egypt, Transjordan, Syria, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia and Iraq.

Israel`s War of Independence lasted until early 1949 and exacted a heavy toll -- 6,000 dead out of a Jewish population that then totaled only 550,000. But Israel, though vastly outnumbered and outgunned, won the war.

``We thought that would be the last war,`` said Schul, who served in it as a lieutenant. ``We thought it would be the war to end all Middle East wars.``

``Don`t forget, my generation had already been through a whole chain of conflicts, including the traumatic experience of the Holocaust,`` Schul said. ``Those of us who had survived all that thought it was over.``

``Now, I realize that we were out of our minds,`` he said with a sad little laugh.

Schul met his wife, Shulamit, while she, too, was a soldier during the War of Independence. As things turned out, their two sons and daughter were likewise obliged to serve in the Israeli army.

Their son-in-law, a fighter pilot, died in an air crash. Their grandson, who just turned 18, is about to enter the Israeli navy.

Since its first Independence Day, Israel has been through five major wars and countless actions, infiltrations and raids. Most Israeli men and women are drafted into the armed forces, and Israeli men continue doing yearly reserve duty until age 55.

All of this has developed in the Israelis a longing for peace, coupled with a fierce determination to maintain security, that no non-Israeli can fully comprehend.

The Israel that emerged from the 1948 war was a country surrounded by enemies still threatening to destroy it. But it was the first Jewish state in 2,000 years, and its people made the most of it. They threw open the gates to Jewish immigration, more than doubling the country`s Jewish population in three years.

While Israel quickly resettled these immigrants -- many of them refugees from Arab lands -- the Arab refugees from the part of Palestine that had become Israel were housed in camps on the Egyptian-occupied Gaza Strip and the Jordanian-occupied West Bank.

The Palestinian refugees were encouraged to become fedayeen -- ``men of sacrifice`` -- and to mount raids on Israel.

In 1956, following a series of such raids, Israel launched its Sinai Campaign, routing the Egyptian army and capturing the Gaza Strip and the Sinai Peninsula in only three days.

But the big powers pressured Israel into a total withdrawal in exchange for international guarantees and the posting of a United Nations force in the Sinai.

``We might`ve been able to negotiate with the Egyptians then, instead of waiting until 1977,`` says Amos Henig, 53, an attorney who fought in the Sinai Campaign. ``Instead, we were forced to withdraw in exchange for nothing at all.``

There is still a note of bitterness in Henig`s voice. Indeed, present- day Israel`s fear of an ``imposed solution`` and its insistence on direct negotiations stem from the 1956 experience.

Less than 11 years later, the international guarantees proved to be worthless. In May of 1967, Egyptian President Gamal Abdul Nasser massed his troops in the Sinai, closed the Straits of Tiran to Israeli shipping and vowed to wipe Israel off the map. Syria and Jordan enthusiastically joined in.

For more than two weeks, Israel waited in vain for the world to act. Then, on the morning of June 5, 1967, Israel struck.